


A Cold Vint and a Warm, Fuzzy Feeling

by Dichotomous_Dragon



Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Cuddling & Snuggling, Fluff, M/M, Pre-Relationship, Sharing Body Heat, Warm and Fuzzy Feelings
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-03
Updated: 2016-12-03
Packaged: 2018-09-06 07:37:32
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,901
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8740693
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Dichotomous_Dragon/pseuds/Dichotomous_Dragon
Summary: An inopportune avalanche forces Dorian and Iron Bull to share some quality time in close proximity. It's not ideal, but might be exactly what both of them need.





	

**Author's Note:**

  * For [mellyflori](https://archiveofourown.org/users/mellyflori/gifts).



> For Mellyflori! Happy Holidays!! Fluff is a bit of a struggle for me but I tried to get as many of your wants as possible. Enjoy!  
> (PS - this is the fic that refused a non-awful title xP I did try, really I did!)
> 
> The prompts/requests:  
> Sing it with me: mutual piiiiiiining! Any mutual pining with forced togetherness. Fake boyfriends, trapped by a cave-in/snowstorm/traffic jam, stuck working together on a mission/project/piece of Ikea furniture/I sincerely don't care. I'm a sucker for the "usually I get some time to myself so I can recover and get my walls back up and not tell you how I feel but this is killing me." Extended angst is fine, but a happy ending, please!  
> Hackneyed tropes - I am a sucker for all the classics, soul mates, fake relationships, bed sharing, aalllllll of them. (Me too, friend, me too :D)

 

“You had best wake up soon, ‘vint, or I’m going to have to get you naked in the least entertaining way possible.” The voice was low and gravelly, utterly familiar. A large, calloused hand brushed along the fabric over Dorian’s chest, the rough ridges of skin catching ever so slightly against the smooth silk. It was the first physical sensation Dorian registered as awareness trickled back to the rest of him. It was quickly followed by the ache of cold joints and the slow, nauseating spin of mana exhaustion.

“Unhand me, you brute,” he absolutely did not slur, batting the offending paw away. A sharp rock under his hip grated against Dorian’s nerves nearly as much as the imagery of Bull undressing him did. “Where are we?”

“Good to see you, too,” Bull groused. Still, he offered his hand again, extended the opportunity for Dorian to outsource the work of hauling his protesting body off the cold rock. Dorian ignored it as pointedly as he had Bull’s other offers, awkwardly shuffling back until he was mostly upright. “Had something of an avalanche after that last fight. Boss and Blackwall were up the trail from us, think they got around the bend before the snow came down. It’s still snowing, I imagine we’ll be stuck for awhile til the weather lets up.”

“Marvelous,” Dorian hissed, groaning as he hauled himself to the slant of the cave wall. The long trek up the mountain came back to him in pieces, the ‘whys’ for all his niggling little hurts slotting themselves in place in his head. The near 3-straight-week slog of questing and hiking. More rogue Templars than any Inquisition-held area should rightly have. Burning off his magic to keep them all warm, so he could keep them all moving. Yes, that nearly summed it up, when stacked against the infernal howling of the wind just outside.

“Hey,” Bull said it with a frankly perturbing amount of false cheer given the situation, “look on the bright side!”

“Bright side?” Irritation curled in Dorian’s tone as he got his knees under him. His leathers were damp from the weather and stiff with cold; the bare rock under him was frigid through his clothes. He shivered.

“We got to cover,” Bull explained, shrugging out of his pauldron but keeping his eye on Dorian all the while. “We have a windbreak. If you get your shiny ass up, we might even manage a fire that’ll get our clothes dried out.”

Dorian's groan as he rose would have been a thing of beauty, had it been uttered under different circumstances. As it stood, the noise rang as long-suffering as the lines of his body, bent over double as he finally found his feet. “Next you’re going to tell me ‘it could worse.’”

“Nah.” Bull opened his pack, lifting out a tattered blanket and his bedroll, “but look at it this way. It’s too early in the season for a storm big enough to last longer than our food should. Neither of us are wounded.” He shrugged, brushed aside some rogue rocks and used the fabric to craft a small place to sit along the wall furthest from the mouth of the crevice. The activity served for shoring up a barrier against the bare grey stone and, increasingly, Dorian’s mood. “Could be Templars about, or bears. That would suck.”

“Maker save me from optimists,” Dorian hissed, finally straightening. He unfolded his arms long enough to send magelights around their de facto shelter. The flickering, soft blue-green of the lights did nothing to bolster his mood, nevermind that they recolored the barren space in the hues of familiarity. It was barely twenty paces across with a jagged ceiling, but he supposed Bull was right that smaller was better. A bear was unlikely to be wedged somewhere they couldn't see it, and what heat he could manage would have less cool air to combat. “They’ll find me entombed in ice under a rock with a Ben-Hassrath agent. Marvelous.” He was shivering down to the marrow of his bones, eyes blurring, and irate about being penned in. “This is absolutely absurd… brilliant strategy, Dorian!” Sarcastic self-flagellation was a familiar mantle to drape himself in, no matter how useless it was against the cold. Right - he needed to do something about the Maker-be-damned cold.

“Fall in with the Inquisition,” he went on, gathering up his will and his ire both. Sympathetic power coiled in his chest and the tips of his fingers. “Spend all your free time in magnificent Fereldan and scenic Orlais, freezing your balls off in a blizzard. Truly, I am a credit to my lineage.”

Spinning on his heel far more quickly than was wise, Dorian pointedly ignored the quiet intensity that was the Iron Bull’s regard, whirling instead to face the open fissure in the rock. He gestured, muttering whispering words harsh as the winter storm just beyond him; a wall of shimmering ice took shape, blocking up all but a small portion of the entrance near the top.

“Nice work.” Bull had levered himself down to his makeshift cushion, hand rubbing absently at his left knee. “Now come sit. It’s gonna be fine. You left us an air pocket in that ice wall. We get a fire going and we’ll be set.”

“A fire, yes,” Dorian scoffed. In answer, flames licked around the outline of his right palm. “What a novel idea, oh wise Qunari spy. I should never have thought of that on my own!” The uncomfortable tilt of his equilibrium from switching elements so fast was worth it for the pleased noise that escaped Bull at the first flare of artificial warmth. The landscape of Bull’s features was exaggerated by the unnatural light and Dorian found his gaze swept unwillingly along the terrain, ensnared by the soft lines around his eye down to the hard cut of his jaw.

Bull raised his free hand and tipped his head in placation, almost as though he too could feel Dorian’s irritation rearing. “Hey, just offering suggestions. I’ve got a few more, if you want 'em, but the fire was a pretty good one.”

Dorian stalked across to the opposite side of his rune lines, rounded his back to Bull. He could feel his carefully manufactured calm slipping; the mission had been long, the fighting near-constant. The last leg of the journey back to Skyhold was meant to be simple and now, instead, he was split off from the others, trapped in a cave with Bull. Bull.

That closing thought alone was enough to make Dorian scowl outright. Bull, with his damnable patience. Bull, wheedling and saying ridiculous things as they tromped around the Maker-damned wilderness. Bull, offering all manner of absurd, salacious… frankly delightful sounding activities to any and everyone that would listen. Worse yet, all of that was simply Bull being Bull: he made those sorts of offers to everyone.

As he carved a sigil to sustain the fire, Dorian found himself thinking ‘it could be worse - it could have been Blackwall - and the disgusted groan that accompanied his eye roll would have done Cassandra proud.

“Dorian.”

“What is it _now_?”

Bull patted the bedroll beside him, apparently having shucked his wet trousers for dry ones while Dorian was doing all the work. Not that it mattered. It wasn’t as though Dorian had any desire to- “Come sit down, ‘vint, and bring me your pack.”

Dorian scoffed. “Oh come now. Surely you can do better than that? A come hither is hardly going to get me to-”

“Dorian. I’m not trying to get in your pants,” right now he added mentally, and just as quickly banished the thought. “You need to get out of that fancy getup and get dry or else you’ll lose those tootsies you love bitching about so much. So get over here,” another pat, pat in the space uncomfortably close to Bull’s furnace-like bulk, “because you need to stay warm when you’re running low on mana too, right? Sharing heat is the best way.”

Half-frozen fingers were not great for finesse; even after setting the fire rune, Dorian’s hands were frigid to the point of near-uselessness. He reluctantly turned over his lack to Bull. “Don’t paw all of my things,” his waspishness sounded trite even to him, now. Bull helpfully ignored him and began extracting Dorian’s blankets with deliberate slowness, his eye intent on the canvas bag and its contents. Dorian sniffed - from the cold, certainly - and began the long work of undoing his buckles. “Besides,” he added after a moment, “how did you know about the symptoms of mana exhaustion?”

“Dalish,” Bull replied, “her feet are like damn icicles when she’s worn out. It actually helps out when she overdoes it on desert missions, sometimes, because she jams the things up against free bit of skin she can. Also, ‘vint, I can tell when you’re tired. You bitch way less about dumb shit when you’re tired and you were near silent the last ten miles or so.”

"Yes, well, I cannot always be the center of attention," Dorian replied.

"Could've fooled me," Bull answered, ignoring the look he knew the 'vint was giving him.

That, and looking at Dorian right at that moment was going to give him an eyeful of all that lovely, smooth skin...

To his moritification, Bull’s cheeks warmed. On anyone else, it’d be a hell of a blush; on him, the rush of color was barely registrable against his skin tone but the heat made damn sure he knew it was there. He’d propositioned Dorian several times, was sure that Dorian shared his interest - Tevinter upbringing be damned - and the musings about all of those had helped Bull himself along on more than one quiet night alone. 

If they had gotten around to tumbling, Dorian was certainly the type to fuck and run. Bull understood, even if he didn’t like it, that Dorian wasn’t ever going to want to spend those hazy moments before sunrise in Bull’s bed, warm sunlight lighting his skin to golden. He wasn’t going to want to cuddle or show himself unguarded to someone like The Iron fucking Bull. Someone else, sure. Dorian practically screamed ‘touch deprived’ to anyone with eyes and a lick of sense in their head… he just wasn’t going to out a weakness like that in front of an enemy of his people.

That was quite enough of that.

"C'mon Dorian," Bull said again, lifting the blankets again. He used the face he commanded the Chargers with - the one that made everyone but Krem fall in line. "No arguing. You need your beauty sleep."

Dorian squinted for a long moment, shivering in nothing but his smalls, so stunned he'd stopped to stare. Until...

"Fine. But you will keep your... massive brute paws to yourself!" And with a huff, he'd placed himself alongside Bull as he agreed.

  
That was why, barely an hour later, the blaring _wrong wrong WRONG_ kept sounding in Bull’s head, even as his chest swelled with the opposite. He'd woken from a catnap to the comfort of soft skin pressed to his own all along his side.

Oh, right. He was apparently keeping the 'Vint - who had explicitly told him to keep his hands to himself - warm, via cuddling. Bull hadn't done it on purpose, hat he knew; he had no clue when Dorian had ended up pressed against him, nor how the movement hadn't woken him up. Wriggling so he could angle down, Bull’s free hand slid along Dorian’s arm, traced back up the rounded, firm line of his side. Cupped ever so gently around his cheek, thumb tracing the rise of one perfect cheekbone. Dorian was always pretty - Bull stood by that one - but this soft, sleepy version of the prickly ‘vint was something else entirely. Bull had seen Dorian sleep, had been there in the tent when he’d woken up, had been in the same bathhouse and river when Dorian stripped to bathe and yet...

Even waking from his size, Bull knew this was by far the most intimate of any of those moments and very suddenly, the warmth in his gut churned to dread. He did not take from people what they weren’t willing to give and he knew - knew - Dorian would never willingly give him this.

“Hey ‘vint,” Bull said it quietly, not wanting to startle him. He stroked down the line of Dorian’s spine, trying not to sigh when the mage arched ever so slightly into the brush of his fingers. “Dorian, c’mon.”

Dorian grumbled quietly, obviously not awake, curling tighter into Bull’s warmth even as he nuzzled against the meat of Bull’s palm.

“Hmm? Bull?” Dorian raised himself on one elbow, hair mussed and silver eyes bleary. Bull couldn’t help the indulgent smile that curled across his lips any more than he could help breathing. Dorian blinked owlishly, eyes blearily tracing the lines of their makeshift confine. When he found his fire rune in place and the ice wall standing intact, his brow furrowed. “What’s wrong?”

“Erm,” Bull’s words faltered, tripped and snagging on his tongue, his mind hung up on the peaceful image of Dorian sleeping, curled up next to him… Make something up, _make something up_ \- “You were asleep.” _Damnit_.

“You’re warm,” Dorian murmured, which was most certainly not a reply. His eyelids fluttered closed, dark lashes fanned across his cheeks as he rubbed absently against Bull’s hand again. Belatedly, not opening his eyes, he added, “Why do I need to be awake?”

“You’re on me, ‘vint.” Dorian hummed at that and wiggled closer just to spite him.

“ _You’re warm_ ,” he said again, more certain even as Bull felt Dorian’s body fall limp and heavy into the vestiges of sleep once again. He added, muffled: “and, apparently, deaf.”

“Mouthy little asshole.”

“Don’t forget handsome,” the mage chided, and slipped under the blanket of unconsciousness. Chuckling despite himself about handsome little asshole ‘vints, Bull followed him shortly thereafter.

 

  
Twice, Bull roused himself - and a grumbling Dorian - long enough to eat a bit of their trail rations and drink, stretch stiff muscles and shore up their fire rune. The storm was still raging outside but now seemed more wind than actual new snowfall, drifting the mounds of white as far as the eye could see. Waning but not dead; still too dangerous to travel in.

“Well? What’s the verdict?” Dorian was still half buried in his blankets, eyes barely open.

“Not snowing as bad,” Bull shrugged as he stretched out his spine, "but these passes aren't going to be clear anytime soon.”

“Meaning…?”

“Hours at best,” to which Dorian sighed mightily, grousing like a displaced cougar might, slinking and stretching and making tiny, snarling growls under his breath as the blankets tipped from his shoulders. The smooth allure of so much skin on display was sweetened by the full-body quivering shudder Dorian made as the lingering heat from trapped by the blankets was lost to the cooler air in the cave.

“ _Kaffas_ , what a pit!” He gathered the bedding back around him, looking for all the world like the pouting, spoiled princeling Blackwall had named him, once.

Bull knew better now, though, knew that it was an act. Dorian was all prickles and barbs polished to a mirror shine, until one watched him long enough to see he really was just a big sap long buried in his upbringing and his homeland’s constructs. It… felt very familiar, honestly, and shit if that wasn’t strange. He chuckled at Dorian’s sleepy theatrics, which of course just made him puff and preen like an angry bird under his mound of covers.

“Praytell what is so funny?” He hissed it, immediately having to smother a yawn, and then had the indecency to look indignant when Bull snorted.

“You, ‘vint, and you know it. It’s the pretty sort of funny, though, so don’t get all worked up.” Dorian squawked as Bull half-lifted him out of the way so he could rearrange them both under the covers. He laid down on his back; Dorian fussed. He muttered under his breath but settled into his now-familiar spot at Bull’s side with a growl and a little wiggle. It was so damn cute; Bull stopped himself short of a bizarre urge to press his lips to the tangle of dark hair.

Dorian was quiet for a few long moments, just the sound of the crackling fire and the muted sounds of the wind outside permeating the still air. His words were quiet and breathy, spoken as a whisper against Bull’s skin. “Why are you so blasted _kind_?”

“Because you deserve it,” Bull replied without thinking. Dorian startled a little, the slightest full-body jerk against him, and Bull could feel the tension in the muscles of Dorian’s back. Apparently he hadn’t meant Bull to hear. “Hey, relax, big guy. You need your rest.”

"So you keep saying." Dorian stayed very still, holding his breath, mulling over the words for long enough that Bull nearly started to fidget in discomfort.

Dorian, meanwhile, waged an internal war his tired mind was really in no state for. The muscles of Bull's broad chest, the kind timbre of his words, the smooth rumble of his voice...it was all too much. It was so simple for Dorian's fool heart and the tight, coiling want behind it to triumph over his good sense. He levered himself up with one elbow, shimmying up Bull’s broad chest until he was tucked neatly under the other man’s chin. He let his free hand wander the broad expanse of muscle under him the way his eyes so often had.

“Surely there is something we can do besides sleep?” Dorian’s voice was still husky from that very activity, his breath just a little too hot against Bull’s throat as his pulse hammered in his own.

Bull himself swallowed, shivering a little as Dorian’s chilled fingers ghosted along his collarbone. Chilled by a lack of magic, and yeah, that probably wasn't great. Neither was Dorian thinking he needed to pay Bull back for common decency with something more physical. Worry fluttered forward, tightening Bull’s chest beneath the tracing paths of those icy fingertips.

“Are you sure you're fit for anything else?” Bull said it out of concern - it took no magical talent to see that Dorian’s power was worn all but threadbare from the constant strain - but as Dorian crumpled at the perceived rebuke, the pieces fell together in Bull’s head. Oh. Oh. And Shit, Bull couldn’t remember wanting something so fiercely as he wanted to be right that Dorian was tense for an altogether different reason than he’d initially thought.

“Hey, Dorian-” and Bull caught the mage’s chin as he said it, ever so gently forcing him to lift his eyes, “-that's not what I meant, alright? You're tired. Anyone with eyes can see that.”

“You've only the one,” Dorian quipped back, but quietly. He studiously avoided meeting that solitary gaze, his own cast down. Disappointment and a host of other things that ran deeper were as bright on his face as the Breach in the sky. It was a far more open expression than his high-bred upbringing typically allowed.

“Kick a man while he’s down, why don’t you,” Bull rumbled faux-seriously while he debated asking the question lurking at the tip of his tongue.

“However would I reach, otherwise?” A sad little smile quirked one side of Dorian’s mouth. Bull chuckled, distracted, but the sound died at the gentle pat of Dorian’s palm against his breastbone. “There is no need for awkwardness, you know. Consider your message received.” Dorian shifted his weight, tried to slip back Bull’s side to flee the closeness and yeah, no way Bull was going to let that happen. He tightened his arm around Dorian’s back and firmed his grip - albeit gently - on Dorian’s chin. The man went rigid again in response. Coiled. Panicked.

“I’m not sure you heard me clearly, ‘vint.” It was amazing that Dorian - Dorian who had faced down his own family; who had fought legions of enemies; who had managed impossible magic without faltering - should be shocked into stillness by something as mundane as Bull’s touch, something as simple as Bull’s voice. The weight of that something grew quite heavy quite quickly, pressing into Bull’s head and heart. He cleared his throat and leaned forward, eye resolute on the beautiful man half-draped across his chest. “Let me try that again.” Bull didn’t have the leverage to advance beyond angling his head, but as he did, he tugged ever-so-gently on Dorian, coaxing, urging him to close the distance that Bull himself couldn't, softly enough that he could pull back if Bull really had misread him.

Dorian did not hesitate, lifting himself to his knees and following Bull’s lead in absolute unison. He guided; Dorian went. Their lips fit together as well as they could, given the angle. Bull was both surprised and not when Dorian pressed them together, silently demanding their skin touch everywhere it could as he all but melted into Bull’s embrace.

Bull let his hand drift, brushing along one defined cheekbone again. Warmth that had little to do with the blankets surged through Bull as he watched Dorian’s eyes slip closed. and when Bull’s neck started to crick, Dorian pushed him flat and moved higher onto his chest to keep contact. Kneeling, shivering in the chill, so absorbed that he didn’t notice. Bull tugged the blankets up so Dorian’s back was no longer exposed, delighting in the pleased hum he got in response.

Bull moved his hands to Dorian’s shoulders, letting his thumbs rub small, soothing circles at the base of the mage’s throat. Dorian made a contented sound, Long moments later, He eased back with a disappointed little whimper.

Bull drew a breath. “Did you, uh, hear me better that time?” Dorian laughed, head tipping back on the mirthful, lighthearted sound.

“Rather, yes, thank you. Though, I find I might… not hate the idea of you repeating yourself?” Bull leaned up to press his lips gently to Dorian’s forehead. When he laid back down, he caught the man looking at him with raw wonder, his lovely eyes gone wide.

“I’d like that.” Bull risked raising his palm to cup Dorian’s face again, heart racing as he leaned into it without pause. “I’d like the other thing you suggested, too, Dorian - you’re gorgeous - I just don’t want to do it when you’re so tired you can’t see straight, alright? Got some stuff I wanna ask you first.”

Dorian allowed himself a beleaguered sigh, despite the sound immediately melting into an appreciative moan at the feel of Bull’s nails on his scalp. “I should think I’d be amenable to that.” He snuck one last kiss, a gentle peck on the lips, before slipping back down to Bull’s side again. Dorian draped his arm across that broad chest as Bull’s heavily muscled arm curled protectively around him.

  
“Sounds good,” Bull chuckled. The pull of the smile stayed strong .

“It had better,” Dorian teased past a yawn. Purely for consistency, of course, and not at all because his heart had swollen too large for his chest.

“Mouthy ‘vint,” and both of them heard the fondness in Bull’s voice.

“Don’t forget handsome,” Dorian added, and smiled as the Bull shifted, feeling the press of lips against his hair.

“Yeah, Dorian. That, too.”

 

 


End file.
